Baleno - 35,000km report Hi,
Well it was five years ago that i decided to buy the baleno. I decide to buy it after evaluating the following:
1. Opel astra
Pros - great roadgrip, Solid feel to the car
Cons - Sluggish performance, had only one dealer in bangalore who had a dubious track record from a service perspective
2. Lancer
Pros - Had everything going for it - performance, interior space, suspension, sports model etc.
Cons - A little pricey
3. Honda
Pros - Heard a great deal about it and scheduled three visits to their showroom for test drives and each time they failed to keep up the time, the last straw was after promising a test drive car for the fourth time at my residence, they did not land up! was so pissed that i decided that if this was their attitude before buying a car, what would be the experience in after sales service - i decided against going in for the Honda.
4. Ford
Had the outdated ford (cant seem to remember the name too now!) model and did not consider it.
I had a friend who ran one of the local maruti dealerships and had bought the esteem from him, so decided to try out the baleno (as i had sort of decided on the astra).
I got to keep the test car for a day, so drove around the city for a bit and my experience compared to the astra was - great performance! The stability of the car was not as good, the build quality too did not match the astra, but considering the dealer support, price, performance - decided to go in for it.
The first thing i noticed was that the road handling and grip with the factory fitted tyres was BAD (felt the centrifugal force in turns would definetly take me off the curve), so i got those changed to much broader tyres. The others were standard - brighter halogens, electronic locking, upgraded the music system with a CD changer, Sony Amp and tri way speakers.
I was one of the fortunate ones to have an office literally walking distance, so over the five years, i have clocked just 35,000 kilometers, with a few long distance trips - but mostly city driving.
Observations:
1. If you follow the recommended guidlines to change stuff and get it serviced, generally jap cars do not give you trouble. The car has NEVER died on me.
2. I am really happy with three things about the car
a) low rev tourque - with city driving, you rarely get to the fourth (my wife owns a ford rally sport which i drive over the weekends and i rarely get to the third in that nowadays!). The performance and pickup even at 2-2.5K rpm on third @ cruise mode to acceleration to overtake cars is great without having to change to 2'nd. Performance is great overall. The thing i have noticed (which was evident in the esteem as well, but not on the ford) is that when i bought the car and accelerated and turned on the airconditioner at the same time, it had no effect on the performance, but now after a few years, the airconditioner being on has a more pronounced affect on the performance.
b) Quite - when you have the windows up and the aircondioner on, it really cuts the traffic noise! With the traffic increasing in bangalore, patience of drivers running out, it helps to be able to listen to oneself and your favourite music.
c) Fuel Efficiency - with the a/c on in the city i get 10-12kmpl depending on the traffic pattern and where i drive. I have got upto 15.5-16kmpl on highways (a good bit of driving done in the 5'th gear).
The areas that i have not liked the baleno so much are:
1. Braking performance - Lot to be desired - i had a panic stop situation when i slammed the brakes when an old man on a cycle, suddenly decided to move from the left lane to the right lane on a highway when i was doing nearly 100kmph and the steering refused to respond, it took forever to come to a halt though i left a good bit of rubber on the road. Will certainly look for a ABS in the next car i buy.
2. Build quality - after five years you begin to hear the creaking of an old car - not something, you hear from other solid german cars.
3. The suspension is not great. The comparision often is made to your previous car (in my case the esteem) and i said its much better till i drove other cars in the same bracket..
Overall, i would say that baleno filled the gap in the maruti lineup of what to buy next after an esteem, but it did not have the market image (and maruti's marketing did not help either). It is a good VFM car, but not a car for someone who wants to create an image by driving one. Maybe i missed out on the Honda, but i had some fun times driving the baleno over the five years and looking forward next year to upgrade to a better car.. |